Adventures in Squashland-A How To

This weekend, as I mentioned earlier, I bought a new food processor. I am sure you will soon grow sick of me talking about it because I am in love with it. In addition to the sweet potatoes I made for C on Friday, I made him some butternut squash and carrots on Saturday. I won't bore you with the carrots (chop, steam, puree), although I will give you a warning: When you cook the carrots, DO NOT use the water you steamed them with to add to the puree because there are some potentially harmful nitrates involved. I read that. Otherwise I wouldn't know it. It may or may not be true or a big deal, but I am not a doctor, so I used regular water to thin out the carrots.

Now to the butternut squash. For those of you who don't know, this is what a butternut squash looks like. It is the coolest of the squash family because it has the funniest name. It is like the Conan O'Brien of squash: slightly orange and unattractive, but funny and tasty so people love him it anyway.

Here's how to cook it:

Cut the squash in half, length-wise

Use a spoon and scoop out the seeds and stringy bits in the bulbous section of the squash. It is much like a teeny pumpkin, only WAY easier to clean.

Place the squash face-down in a baking pan with about 1/2 inch of water in the pan.

Preheat oven to 400 and bake for about 40 minutes

The skins should start to wrinkle and the squash should be relatively soft

Scoop out the "meat" of the squash. You should be able to get almost all of it out, leaving only the skins.

Put it in the food processor or blender.

Puree until smooth.

Add water, if necessary, to thin the puree a little more and you will have baby worthy butternut squash! Yum! You would not believe the color. This camera/picture cannot do it justice. It looks so good I might eat it. I froze the butternut squash and carrots because C was still working on the homemade sweet potatoes. I plan to add some green stuff to the mix, as well as apples and bananas, so that my little man doesn't turn orange with all of these orange foods!

While I was cooking for C-Note on Sunday, I cooked a little something for Billbo and me. I cooked the brown rice and black beans necessary for my Paradise Island Bean Burgers. I talked about them in a previous post and I decided to show you how delicious they look.
With a spinach salad with homemade Tahini dressing? Yes please!

I also tackled the spaghetti squash this weekend. We haven't had it yet, but don't worry. Pictures and review to follow!

For those readers who do not have babies and who do not give a flying flip how to cook a butternut squash edible by a 6 month old, I promise, I will not babyproof every post. I am just so embarrassingly obsessed with the food processor that I could not wait to use it. I am pretty sure that soon, no one will believe I was ever cool with as much as I want to stay at home and hang out with my kitchen appliances lately. Loser. Sorry Bilbo. At least the family will have tasty purees and homemade dressings for a while.